


Cut The Whiskers Off Kittens

by toesohnoes



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:30:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toesohnoes/pseuds/toesohnoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sue is a goddess. Literally.</p><p>After Sue gets bored and kills off most of the other gods, Will decides his chances of survival are best if he goes into hiding: deep into hiding. Disguising himself as a Spanish teacher and slipping into the human reality seems like the perfect idea. No one ever said that gods were smart, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut The Whiskers Off Kittens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Glee Big Bang](http://community.livejournal.com/gleebigbang/) at Livejournal. Many thanks to greyelveneyes for betaing.

The greatest god in all the known universe (and the unknown universe, for that matter) was now the only god in the universe.

Officially.

Bodies littered the supernatural landscape. The Goddess of Wealth bled a river of gold, while Cupid's arrow had been permanently broken in two, along with his neck. Venus had climbed out of her last sea-shell, and Thor's hammer had been shoved somewhere rather unsanitary. All in all, the landscape looked like a closing down sale at a butcher's shop. Chaotic and sloppy, everything must go.

At the centre of the carnage, Sylvestra stood with multi-coloured blood on her hands. And her arms. And her face. And her torso. And her legs. Easier to just say 'everywhere'. She surveyed the scene with a sense of disappointed satisfaction. Not a single mystical muscle stirred around her. Blood of a thousand colours dripped, but there was no one left to attack. They lay motionless. Dead.

Lazy.

She frowned at the lot of them, waiting for their inevitable resurrection, but it didn't come.

She had really finished them off this time.

It didn't feel half as thrilling as it ought to. She looked around at her handiwork and slung her dripping axe over her shoulder, a trophy from someone or other that had been slain. It felt good in her hands, just the right weight, but there was nobody left to kill with it. This was unacceptable. She had been just getting started, and now they were all gone, except -

Except, probably, not all of them.

There would be the cowards and the peace-seekers, the wimps and whiners who had disappeared before the war, hiding in every corner of this universe and the next.

Hiding. Waiting.

With a pleased sneer, Sylvestra swung her axe once more to feel it swishing through the air, waiting for new necks to cut. Her hunt was on.  


*

 _One Eternity, Five Lightyears and Three Universes Later_

Today was going to be a good day. Will could feel in on the air. There was sunshine, birds singing, and a notable lack of traffic blocking his way on the road. What more could any sane person ask for? He parked in his usual spot, not too far from the school doors themselves, and walked with a notable spring in his step. He had choreography spinning in his head, new numbers for New Directions that would be surefire crowd-pleasers, and he didn't even feel weary at the thought of handling his remedial Spanish class this afternoon. As he walked through the front doors of McKinley High, nothing could bring him down.

His way was blocked, suddenly, by a thunderous storm cloud in a red track suit and trainers.

Sue Sylvester sucked her protein shake with a straw, glaring as if she was planning on sucking out his soul next. "William," she said, "If you'll look down at your disturbingly undersized feet, you'll find that you are in my way. Scram."

Catching himself before he could actually look down (because, _damn it_ , his feet were not that small), Will held onto the strap of his satchel and reminded himself that today was going to be a good day. "I was here first," he pointed out, unable to quite believe that they were actually going to argue about this.

"Incorrect. I've been at this school for longer than you've been speaking español."

"Today, Sue. I was walking here first, you saw me, you purposely walked in my way. You should move."

"Those are serious accusations." She blinked at him like a predator. "To suggest that I would block your way on purpose is to imply that you anything more than a maggot crushed under my foot and currently ruining my brand new sponsor-bought sneakers. I would ask if you could conceivably be that conceited, but the answer to that particular question lies in the number of times you've hopped on stage with your glee club. I won't ask it."

Will could slowly feel his soul draining away. "Sue, please. I'm having a good morning."

"So was I, until I turned up to this place and saw your cartooned face in my way."

Self-consciously, Will's hands flew to his face; there was nothing wrong with it, right?

Sue smiled, all fangs and bare-knuckles. "Relax. Lots of people in the world are attracted to animated creatures. Toonophilia is an epidemic in our internet-addicted generation."

With a pat on his shoulder that nearly dislocated the joints, Sue then nipped around him and carried on down the school steps, terrorising innocent students as she passed. Will watched her go, craning over his shoulder, before he noticed one very important fact: his way was clear.

He had _won_.

With a delighted smile on his face and a dancing bounce in his step, Will continued his journey towards his classroom. Lost in his own petty sense of glee, he failed to notice the triumphant swell of string music that accompanied his path.  


*

"It's looking great, guys; everything is really coming together. Keep practising like this and we'll have no problem at Regionals," Will said. They were stronger than they had ever been. Regionals was theirs this year. Vocal Adrenaline could rightfully eat it.

He listened to the kids chattering as they began to filter away after practice. Once he was alone, he started to tidy up. They weren't messy, but there were chairs to be stacked and sheet music to put away and chewing gum wrappers to be picked off of the floor. It was frustrating, but they were good kids. He didn't resent it.

When it was tidy enough, he picked up his satchel and hung it over his shoulder, weighed down by papers he had to mark. He turned the lights out as he exited the room. The school was almost deserted at this time of day. There was a silence in the corridor as if it was a stage waiting for someone to perform. A smile spread on Will's face as he walked through the peace, spinning circles in his mind.

"William!"

Abruptly, the circles died.

Turning around, he found Sue waiting for him like a track-suited grim reaper. "Sue," he said. "Always a pleasure."

She sniffed at him in a way that implied purpose rather than disdain: she was taking in his scent. "You sing a lot," she said. It sounded like an accusation.

He frowned. Waited for the cruel punchline. It didn't come. "Yes, I do," he cautiously confirmed.

"So does that Disneyfied Berry brat," Sue mused.

"She's a student." Will knew it was a lost cause, but instinct still kicked in. "You really can't talk about her like that."

"She's too young," Sue agreed, and Will saw a shining flash of hope. "He wouldn't be stupid enough to hide as a teenager." Instantly, all hope died. "A souped-up bouffanted Spanish teacher? He would be that stupid."

"You're making even less sense than usual."

"Your hair cannot be achieved without supernatural powers," Sue marvelled. "It's so tight and gravity-defying, like a gymnast."

"My hair is completely normal."

"It could be a Cheerio, there are so many chemicals in there." She narrowed her eyes at the offending curls as if waiting for them to make a move. Valuing his life, Will froze.

"I've got my eye on you, Schuester," Sue warned him. "If I hear a single out of place note, I will personally pull away your wholesome teacher disguise, I will expose you as an immortal fraud, and then I will kill music forever, right in front of your dead-end band of misfits."

"Your threats are getting weirder," Will told her, as his face crinkled in confusion.

Sue snarled at him and spun on her heel to storm away like an angry hurricane. Sighing, Will walked in the other direction, home to his empty and blissfully quiet apartment.  


*

At night, his eyes flickered beneath their lids. He was in a large, wallless hall with a table that stretched as far as his eyes dared to see. The table was heavy with food and tankards of ale, and it was flanked on both sides by a bizarre array of not-quite-human specimens. Will didn't feel out of place at all. When he looked down to pick up a chicken leg, his hands glowed with natural light, as beautiful as a sunset around his golden skin.

"What are we celebrating?" he asked the three-bearded man beside him, who roared with violent laughter.

"The End of Days, comrade!" the god shouted over the din of their friends. "Tomorrow we go to war!"

And Will couldn't eat any more, couldn't smile, and wouldn't leap up onto the table to dance for them when they asked.

He needed to escape; he wanted to _survive_.  


*

The next night, Will dreamt that he had lost his car keys down the back of Finn's couch, and that Carole Hudson wouldn't give them back until he returned the penguin that he had borrowed from her.

Not every dream had special significance.  


*

  
Finn didn't really seem to be taking in the message that Will was trying to impart. No matter how inspirational Will was, his eyes remained glazed, his jaw slack, his brow furrowed.

"You need to be yourself, Finn. I know it's hard. Believe me. But that's what Glee Club is all about: finding yourself, and being that self no matter the cost. We've got each other."

Finn cleared his throat. "Um. Sure."

"Why do I get the feeling that you're not listening?" Will smiled, indulgent with his glee kids and their failings in a way that could never be with his Spanish pupils.

"I am, Mr Schue. Really. It's inspiring and all, it's just -"

He paused, uncertain, and Will nodded to encourage him: they were getting to the crux of the matter now. "It's just what?"

"The score? Like, the background music stuff? I'm trying to pay attention, 'cos you're, like, the smartest guy I know, but - it's sort of distracting."

"Background music?" Will paused and allowed the silence to assault his ears. "Finn, there's nothing there."

Finn's frown intensified with well-meaning confusion. "You don't hear that?"

"There isn't anything to hear."

"Well, yeah. Not now, 'cause you're stopped - _speeching_." Finn flapped like a puppet getting used to hand gestures. "You're not playing it on purpose?"

Will shook his head. "Maybe you should go home. Get some rest - it'll do you good."

Finn seemed relieved to be able to slope away. Will wondered if there was any point in trying to get through to these kids; even the good ones didn't want to listen. Yet he couldn't stop trying. He couldn't stop believing that he could make a difference in these kids' lives, that he could make the world a better place, one student at a time. With perseverance, maybe he could even -

He could hear music.

It stopped, abruptly, as soon as he noticed it, but he knew that he had heard something. A string quartet, from the sounds of things. "Hello?" he called, even though his classroom was empty - and there was nowhere large enough for a cello player to hide. A student might have left an MP3 player behind, but he didn't think that any of his students were the type to listen to classical music.

As he wandered back and forth between desks to try to locate the now-vacant noise, a realisation slowly crystalised in his mind, something so blatant that it should have been there all along:

"Sue."

It made sudden, irritating sense.

"I know it's you," he said, looking around the room. "It's not funny."

The silence creaked at him. Despite a thorough search of the room - neglecting to mark his papers in the process - he didn't find the source of the noise - but that hardly mattered. He knew the source now.

It wouldn't take him long to get to the bottom of things.  


*

  
Across her desk, Emma's Bambi eyes watched him in halting confusion. "Why would she do that?" Emma asked.

"Why does Sue do anything?"

"Well, generally, her main motive seems to be bringing Glee Club down. Also, general malice. How would playing music when you weren't paying attention fit into that?"  
Will shook his head. After working it out, he hadn't bothered to think too far into it. She would have her own reasons, something strange and twisted and too illogical to follow. "Does it matter? It's her. It's part of her whole plot against me."

"Uh-huh."

"I know this sounds crazy."

"That's the problem. I don't think you do." She stared at him while he struggled to formulate a response. For a moment, her eyes skimmed to her display of leaflets, but she seemed to quickly discover that she didn't have anything suitable for this situation. "To you this sounds normal. And, working with Sue, maybe it is, but - "

"You don't believe me," Will finished for her. It surprised a baffled smile onto his face. He didn't feel like smiling, not one bit, but his face hadn't caught onto that yet.

Emma's face twitched like a rabbit on the road. "If Sue was going to do something to you, don't you think she'd aim for something... flashier?"

Will didn't have much of an answer for that, beyond the burning feeling that he was right. When he left her office, a sense of injustice burned in his chest; he was barely able to recall how their conversation had ended. Striding through the corridors, he felt like a teenager storming to sulk in his room - but he wasn't sulking. He wasn't ashamed.

He was on the warpath.

Students parted before him as if thrown from his path, and the corridor itself was darker, invaded by black clouds. In the background, _Ride of the Valkyries_ blasted from thin air, loud enough to make several students cover their ears.

It only stopped when Will threw open the door to Sue's office. The lack of sunlight gave the room the feel of a dank cave, as if a coiled monster might be waiting inside. There was only Sue, lounging with her sneakers on her desk while she polished a small letter-opener as if it was a mythical sword.

"I know what you're up to," Will declared, striding into the room. In the doorway, the light from the hallway backlit his body; he glowed like an angel.

Sue slammed the letter-opener onto the desk. "I doubt that very much," she said, casually swinging her feet back to the ground. "For that to apply, I would have to be 'up' to something in the first place. Do you know what happened to the boy who cried wolf?"

Will huffed. "Nobody believed him," he answered.

Sue's hand smacked against the desk. "Wrong!" She glowered. "He _died_."

Will pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered if Sue's evil plan was simply to drive him to the brink of insanity. It was working. "Are you saying that if I keep accusing you I'm going to die?"

She made a noise that sounded like a deflating balloon. Dismissive. "I was just telling you a nice story, William. Take a seat. Let me know what I'm up to in the fantastically small world of your daydreams."

Her smile was like the death mask of a clown. Breathing steadily, he wouldn't allow himself to be intimidated. "The music, Sue," he snapped. His hands clung to the seat in front of her desk, where hundreds of scared, bullied students had cowered in the past. He wouldn't be yet another of her victims. "I know you're behind it."

Carefully, slowly, Sue sat forward. "The music?" She stood up and started to pace around her desk, step by threatening step. "Tell me more."

He gave one dry bark of laughter before it froze in his throat. "Background music. Don't act innocent. I don't know how you're doing it, but I'll find out."

Sue held his gaze, her face motionless, and it made Will think that he could see eternity: to the beginning of time and beyond, to the fights and rivalries that came before. The place of his dreams.

He remembered the power that once coursed through his veins, music and light and laughter, and he remembered the cold flood of fear that had possessed him when he realised that Sylvestra planned to take that away from him - to destroy all of them. In Sue's blue eyes now, he saw furious hunger. Death and destruction. War.

He looked and he remember and he feared - because this was what he had been running from, hiding from, for so many long forgotten years. Her wrath and her bloodlust, forever insatiable.

"Sylvestra," he breathed, words whispered on strings as tense music swelled in the background.

Before him, Sue smiled like a shark.

"Hello, Will," she said like an old friend - before her fist met his face, and the world turned white.

*

He woke up with the kind of headache that threatened to rip the entire world apart. It pounded and thumped, taunting him, and with an upset groan he moved his arm to cover his face as if that might be enough to fight it off.

It didn't work.

All he got for his trouble was an unimpressed cough from the angry goddess sitting on the other side of the room. At the sound, Will's eyes snapped open and he sat up instantly, trying to ignore the way that the room spun in retaliation. They weren't in her office any more, but Will didn't recognise the new room at all. The high school had been left behind.

"I didn't think it would be fair to chop your head off while you were sleeping," Sue informed him, as she inspected the hefty sword that she was clutching. The blade was so clean that her face was clearly reflected in it, as efficient as any mirror. "Unsporting."

Will swallowed. His blood was laced with power now, strong and undeniable, but compared to Sue he was nothing; he could sing and cast back shadows, but compared to Sue's all-reaching violence he was powerless. He couldn't sing away an attack; how could music fight blood?

"You're here to kill me," he stated, throwing the words into the open so that he could hear the truth. They still sounded absurd. He had never understood the need for war. "Why?"

Sue got to her feet, swinging the sword through the air. It swooped with a sound that was almost musical. "I'm bored and you're weak. There isn't a whole lot to it other than that, sunshine."

"It's wrong." Will got to his feet. "It's murder. You've already killed so many."

"And you ran like a coward with your tail between your legs. You let them die to save your own skin. Are you trying to tell me that you're better than me?"

"I'm not the one holding the sword."

Sue paused, and nodded. "It's a metaphor for your freakish incompetence. I hold a sword and you don't. Says it all."

As far as Will was concerned, it mostly said that she was a super-powered psychopath.

"Well." Sue waited impatiently, then gestured towards the door with her sword. "Aren't you going to run?"

"Right," Will agreed, jerking with adrenaline before he set off, shooting past her with the speed of light as he dashed for the door. The handle started to melt beneath his supercharged hands, years of disguise as a Spanish teacher giving him shaky control.

Through the door, he skidded into a corridor he didn't recognise: empty and impossibly long, both directions were equally daunting. At random, he turned right and darted in that direction, his feet skimming over the ground at gun-shot pace.

He came to a set of stairs and shot down it, tumbling at his speed. His lungs burned with the need for air, and his feet were already aching; badly out of shape, he hadn't ever anticipated the need for running for his life.

Behind him, he couldn't hear the sound of Sue's following footsteps above the battering of his own feet on the tile floor, and he didn't dare to pause and look over his shoulder, and risk losing valuable time. Like a doe being hunted down, he had to assume he was in her sights, that she was closing in. And where did he have to go?

Nowhere was safe; nowhere could hide him.

Yet, running wasn't his field of expertise, nor was fighting; hiding, keeping his head down, vanishing into the night. That was where he flourished.

He reached the end of the corridor and reached for a door at random. Locked, it resisted his attempt to open it. His eyes flashed with light like the sun, white and blinding, and the door burst inwards, thrown from its hinges. He strode into the room; with books lining the walls, it looked as if it belonged to a lawyer or an academic, but under the force of the door's explosion fire had started to lick at their pages, slowly eating its way along the shelves.

The room was a dead-end, just like the corridor, but there was a window waiting at the other side, showing the night outside. Stars shone as he made his way forward, skimming around the desk.

"William," Sue bellowed in the doorway, her shoulders raised and her eyes burning. The smoke from the fire smogged her face, and swirled around her body. "Stay right where you are."

He looked from Sue to the window and back again. In one direction, there was an unknown drop and a hard fall waiting for him. In the other direction, there was the point of Sue's sword and the fire of her wrath.

The choice was easy.

Shielding his head with his arms, he flung himself at the window. The glass smashed and shattered with the impact and his body fell through the bloody opening into open air, down and down with the wind rushing by his ears and the ground racing towards him until -

 _Damn._

More than human, the fall didn't break his body. That didn't mean it didn't ache.

Groaning, with gravel imprinted against the side of his face, Will tried to get up once more. If his head had been sore before it was nothing compared to the burn that plagued him now, every inch of his being complaining about the treatment. Getting to his feet, he looked up to find Sue framed in the broken window, looking down at him with a sneer on her face.

Stronger than him, she could have made the leap with even less damage; she could have been able to fly for all that he knew. He looked up at her and waited for death to fly down to meet him - but all he received was a curling smirk that worried him far more than any blade could do. She raised a hand to salute to him. The sight felt like a threat.

The instant she disappeared from the window frame, Will got moving. He limped at a wounded pace, as quickly as he could, while pain shot through his body with every breath.

He recognised this area now, and realised that the building currently leaking smoke from a broken window was the town hall. That put him a short walk from his apartment. It wasn't the safest place that he could go, but it was all that he could think about, the only sanctuary that remained; the hall of the Gods was gone. Everywhere that he had once known and roamed had been destroyed by Sue's ready hand, and all of the gods too. His friends were dead. He was all that was left.  
And he wished, desperately, that he could forget again. Hide again. He didn't need to deal with this.

He limped onwards, with blood on his clothes and rips in his jeans. Sue couldn't be far behind, he was sure, and he was in no fit state to face her. He never had been; that had been the entire point of disappearing in the first place. Hiding well within the universe had been a fair idea at the time, but she had had an eternity to hunt him down. It had been bound to happen eventually.

He still wished that it could have been put off for a few more centuries.

He reached his apartment block and fumbled with his keys, continually checking over his shoulder. He kept expecting her to pop up, sword in hand - he wasn't proud enough to imagine that he might have given her the slip quite so easily. She was an expert at this, having killed hundreds of gods before; this was his first time being chased down by a homicidal deity. He really hoped it was the last.

All of that presumed that he would even make it out of this situation alive, which at the moment wasn't an outcome that looked altogether likely. Yet as he slipped into his apartment, a slice of all that tension still managed to fade away. There was a worn-out cardigan hung over the back of the couch, and an empty coffee mug on the table from his rushed breakfast that morning. His human life might have been a cover story and little more, but he had still lived it, morphing the universe around him to slip in there almost unnoticed. All the memories were real enough. All the humans that had spider-webbed their way into his life, they were real too.

It hardly mattered, though. When it came down to a choice between them or survival, Will knew where his roots lay.

He made his way through his apartment, allowing the answer machine to play its messages as he headed through to the bedroom to pack what few items he might need, looking for inspiration as he moved. Figgins's voice intoned from the machine to scold him for disappearing from work, decrying the evils of having to call in an emergency substitute and the affect that that could have on the school's budget. Even while hastily packing the few clothes he wanted to bring with him, Will couldn't help but smile. School budgets felt a long distance from where he was now.

The message ended, and the cold voice of his machine told him that another was coming.

"Will, I just got a phone call from the school. Are you alright?" Terri's voice asked.

That voice would have made him feel a flush of anger and the ashamed burn of betrayal yesterday. Today, there was a distant pity: flawed and human, she had abandoned music to her teens. It was little wonder that she had never truly been one of his.

The message ended with her urging him to get in touch if he needed anything at all, and he zipped up his backpack. His mind was blank of places to go, but he would find somewhere. Wherever music played and the sun shone, he had a chance of being safe. This poor little school had seemed as good a place as any, but he had to turn his back now. He slung his bag onto one shoulder and looked around the small bedroom where he had lived a married life, at the bed where he had made love like a mortal. There was an ache in his chest, and he wished he could stay.

Out in the hallway, the answering machine clicked onto its last message.

"William," it boomed.

Sue.

Will's hand clenched on the strap of his bag and he moved to lurk in the doorway of his bedroom, too cautious to stride straight out.

"Now that you've snivelled back to your little cave, we can discuss the rules of the game. I'm going to kill you, that's the first rule. I'm going to track you down eventually and slice you open until you bleed sparkles all over the ground. You get one day to prepare. Don't leave town. Don't even try - it won't work."

Listening, Will swallowed. As tempting as it was to try anyway, he didn't want to imagine what kind of precautions she had set up to ensure that he didn't escape.

"Tomorrow at sundown, be at the high school. We can throw some big talk around, and then I'll get my sword and stab it in your guts. If you wimp out, like I'm sure you will, I'll track you down, and I'll stab it some other places too. I'm thinking I'll start with your ears."

Will covered his ear with his hand, eyes wide as he stared at the phone. He liked these ears.

"Make it entertaining, and maybe I'll give you another day. See you tomorrow."

 _End of Messages_ , intoned the machine, and Will dropped the bag to his feet and slid down onto the ground. Light-headed, he was nothing more than a mouse being toyed with. Even making his own plans seemed fruitless: faced with Sylvestra, and deprived of running as an option, he had no chance of survival -

But entertainment, at least, that was his forte. Sue had never been a fan of music or light shows, but he could find a way to make this work for him. All he needed was a little time - and for some heaven-inspired reason, Sue had decided to give it to him.  
*

He spent the night in his apartment, pacing the floor and trying to come up with a way to get through this. He tried to contact gods that he knew were long dead, and he looked at items in his apartment that could become a weapon at short notice. At the moment, his money was still on the microphone stand that he kept in the cupboard by the door, hidden behind the vacuum.

Running his fingers through his hair and tugging at the curls, he tried to slam an idea into his mind but nothing seemed willing to appear. The sun rose outside and with his curtains drawn he began to feel better, stronger; the light was all his, filling him up, and he leaned his forehead against the glass of his window, eyes shaded. Today might be the last chance he had to feel that heat, unless he was able to come up with something a lot better than he had so far.

A rapid, impatient knocking at his door forced his eyes to open. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was eight in the morning; too early for Sue to come for him, if she had decided to keep her word. That was doubtful.

He picked up a hefty book on his way to answer the door, thinking that it might be enough to buy him some time if he needed it, but when he opened the door there was an entirely different kind of monster waiting for him.

"Rachel," he said in surprise, before his attention shifted to take in all of the others behind her too. "Finn? Everyone?"

"You vanished yesterday," Rachel explained, striding forward in a way that forced him to open the door to them. Like a brightly coloured army, the entire Glee Club trooped into his home, with even Puck grouching along as the tail. Confused, Will continued to hold the door open even after they were all inside, as if waiting for anyone else to join in the impromptu morning party that seemed to have kicked to life in his living room.

He rubbed his forehead and followed after them, allowing the door to close after dropping his protective book to the ground. "What's going on, guys? Why are you here?"

"You're wearing yesterday's clothes," Kurt said. With one hand gloved and the other uncovered, he stared at Will with little short of horror in his eyes. Crimes against fashion apparently didn't warrant any leniency. "And they have blood on them."

Ah.

That might also explain the horror.

"I fell," he said, clutching at the first excuse that came to hand as he looked down at his clothes. He hadn't even noticed the rips and dried blood. He smelled of smoke as well, lingering reminders of the fire that he had caused in the city hall. "Don't worry about it, guys. Get to school and focus on your work."

"You're not coming into school," Rachel deduced, arms crossed over her chest as she gave him a glare worthy of a disappointed mother. "You don't look ill, Mister Shue."

"I have stuff to do," Will said. "The sub will take care of everything."

"Sectionals are closing in on us; now is not the time for personal business, not if we want to make it all the way to Nationals this year," Rachel said. She looked around at the others, all of whom seemed more focused on pretending that they weren't backing her up. "You need to take this seriously."

"Of course I am," Will answered, even if he could no longer plan on being their leader any more. This time tomorrow, he doubted if he would exist any more. "There are just... There's a lot going on for me right now, Rachel. I believe in you guys, and I believe that you can make it, but it's going to have to be without me."

They stared at him without blinking, until he was left wondering if he had accidentally stopped time.

"Are you quitting?" Finn asked eventually. "'cause, we can work harder. We'll be better."

"It's not about you," Will said, but he had to cut himself off when he found that he desperately wanted to laugh. He felt as though he was trying to break it off with a girlfriend. Considering the betrayed looks on the club's faces, maybe that wasn't too far wrong. "There's a lot that I need to deal with right now in my own life. Believe me - if I could be there with you guys, I would be, but that's not going to happen."

Finn looked as if he had just kicked him in the stomach. Will didn't have the heart to tell him that he had to accept it.

"Are you in trouble Mr Schue?" Finn asked, brow furrowed in concentration. "Because, if you are, you should tell us. Glee Club sticks together. You taught us that."

Had he? Will wasn't sure if he had ever noticed them taking that lesson seriously before. The sniping and arguments that went on within the club had made his heart sink when he had been nothing more than a human. Ascended from that form, it now seemed pitifully human.

"This is something I'm going to handle myself," he stated, hoping that the tone of his voice left no room for argument. Judging from the way that everyone's mouths opened, ready to protest, that wasn't the case - he raised his hand to still their words. "Don't argue with me on this, guys. It's time for you to get to school."

"We've got, like, an hour," Puck said. Will imagined that he was here mostly as an excuse to avoid going to school, if he could. "Seriously, dude. If you need someone taken down, give the word."

Will imagined Puck and his "bros" chucking Sue into a dumpster. It was unlikely to work, but a pleasant image nonetheless - although the intense likelihood of it ending up with all of the teenagers extremely dead made it a less promising prospect.

"Thank you for the offer, Puck, but I really don't think that this is appropriate," Will said. That was something of an understatement. Besides, as an impromptu army, these guys left something to be desired. Sue had ripped and sliced her way through twice as many gods. She wouldn't blink an eye faced with a plucky group of teenagers. "I appreciate your concern, everyone, honestly - but I'm an adult. I'm more than capable of handling this on my own."

"You still haven't said what 'this' is," Mercedes pointed out, standing at Kurt's side with her arms crossed.

Will smiled, almost to himself, and wondered how they would all react if he tried to tell them the truth; there was a god in their classroom and another leading the Cheerios, and the pair of them were squaring up for an unequal show-down. They wouldn't believe him. He knew that. Human minds were closed off to the realities of him and his kind these days. Too bloodthirsty to be worshipped, in Sue's case. Too sparkly to be respected, when it came to him.

"It doesn't matter; it's personal."

"We're family."

"You're _students_ ," Will corrected, frowning as sternly as he could manage at the lot of them. They didn't take it well, shifting and tossing their heads, but they listened for once when he tried to herd them towards the door again. It was like trying to herd a set of pigeons, as they flew towards interesting objects and cawed in anger as he shot down their ideas. "Thank you for your concern, guys. I appreciate it."

They left reluctantly, but only after making him promise that he would get in touch with them if he needed anything. For children, they were pushy. Will thought that as a human he had been far too lenient - too much freedom. He had been as weak as a teacher as he had been as a god; history was destined to repeat itself. All beings were stuck in patterns that repeated and repeated throughout the centuries, never truly changing. Even gods weren't exempt.

He closed the door in the wake of his visitors, and stood in his quiet apartment trying to clear his mind.

If he was weak, if he was stuck, and if he was doomed to repeat the past, then he had to work out how to put that to his advantage. By this point, it was clear enough that his life depended on it.

*

The evening came around all too quickly, despite his attempts to slow time down around himself, to drag it down and stretch it out. Yet the sun started to crawl beneath the skyline, and he found himself walking towards the high school where he had spent so many years hiding and pretending to be someone else - something else.

His hands glowed with nervous light, enough to fight off the growing darkness as night crowded in. It was unlikely to be enough to confuse Sylvestra. If it had been one of the slower or blinder gods, he might have got away with it.

But Sue was smart, he reminded himself as he allowed himself to slip inside the school, bringing the lock on the door and hoping that no one was still around. This could get messy, not to mention bloody.

His internal light brightened up the dark corridors as he walked through the school like a ghost, feeling out of place and unwanted. This place held the memories of a false life that he had lived, of songs he had sung and the students he had taught. It made him want to start smiling, even as the rush of bitter nostalgia had hit him hard. If it hadn't been for Sue, he could have carried on in this deceit for much longer yet. Time was a funny thing for gods. He could have been a Spanish teacher here for eternity.

On the other hand, that sounded a little bit like hell.

Maybe facing her now was a far better option.

"You look sappy," Sue said, behind him unexpectedly.

He hadn't heard a single footstep, but turning around he found her - too close. Her sneer pushed her further into his personal space than he was anticipating at this stage, and he didn't stop himself from taking a step backwards.

She looked him up and down like a farmer evaluating his cattle. "And you're glowing like a fairy."

His eyebrows rose. "That's kind of homophobic, isn't it?" It wasn't like them to pay any attention to those matters, too high above the worries of physical humanity to bother with bigotry.

Her scowl deepened until he was worried that she was going to try biting him. "I mean it literally, Schuester." She sniffed at him, edging closer as he tried to keep his distance. "I understand that a snivelling little god who hasn't had his powers out in years is gonna have an issue or thirty-two, but have your years in mortal flesh convinced you to become afraid of the dark?" She looked down at his glowing hands. "You're a god. Act like one."

He swallowed hard and tried to banish thoughts of sharp swords and running blood from his mind. "I wanted to be able to see you," he said. "You plan on killing me. Why shouldn't I see your face?"

She glared at him as if he had just gone cross-eyed, but her nostrils flared as she breathed in deeply. He didn't know how to interpret that.

"Aren't you going to run?" she asked. "I liked your little stunt yesterday."

"The fire?"

"The destruction." The glint in her eyes was little short of homicidal. "That was something. It was a start, anyway."

"Isn't destroying public property a little bit below you, Sue?" Will tried to point out.

"Start small - get bigger," Sue said. "I couldn't expect you to begin with anything more impressive than some burnt curtains. Your conscience is so grotesquely inflated that you would collapse into a snivelling heap of tissues. Then I really would have to kill you just to overcome the need to vomit."

Reality was spinning out of his grasp again. Frowning, he tried his best. "What are you up to? I thought we were here so that you could kill me."

"That's one way that this ends, if you continue to act like a crying little baby then the blood is going to have to flow as a cure for my headache. If you god-up a little, maybe I'll be able to understand the point in keeping you alive."

He'd known that already, but the pressure weighed heavily onto his shoulders. "I don't understand what you want," he admitted. She wanted entertainment and she thrived off of violence; he and his peace couldn't fit in with that.

"I want you to pull your finger out your ass and fight," she said, with a smile on her face that was mostly patronising. "I've got a long eternity ahead of me. Might as well draw this out a little."

Will's head tilted to the side as he considered the cold blue of her eyes. He stayed where he was, as tempting as it was to step forward. "I don't think you want to kill me at all," he concluded, a triumphant smile slowly spreading to his face as he realised that he was right.

Her upper lip twitched. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No, it's true." He knew it was. He could feel that truth on the air in this dim hallway, charging the space with electricity that he wanted to hide in. "You're lonely, Sue. You might not want to admit it, but without me around you'll be on your own again. Who would want that?"

"I'm not a bleeding heart like you," she sneered.

"It doesn't matter. Every being needs companionship. You're no exception."

"I am exceptionally exceptional, Schuester. Stay right where you are."

He took a step forward anyway, fully aware that he might end up receiving a sword through the chest at any moment. It didn't make him stop. Right now, this seemed like his best shot.

"Don't think I won't run you through and leave you bleeding. Think about those all-star failures of yours finding you here in the morning."

"Sue," Will said, as gently as he could manage. He was close enough to her now that it would be easy to reach out and take hold of one of her hands, the pair of them glowing together. "Let me live and you don't have to be alone any more. This violence, it isn't necessary."

She bared her teeth like a dangerous dog. "You're trying to make me weak. It won't work."

"There's nothing weak about this," Will assured her. He didn't think that she was listening, so he went ahead and took hold of her hand. She looked as disgusted as if he had decided to lick it. "Everyone needs a little contact, once in a while. Even you."

"The only contact I need, William, is my fist in your face," she snarled - but she hadn't even tried to pull her hand away from him yet. He could taste survival. "And that is exactly what is going to happen here if you don't remove yourself from me, and start running. Quickly."

"I'm done running," Will said, even if his heart was racing and it seemed like a spectacularly good idea. Maybe he should have just set something on fire instead. She seemed to like that. "I'm right here, and I'm not moving."

"I could move you." She glared, her eyes narrow in the dim glowing light from his hands. "I could throw you right through that wall. This building is structurally insecure; it would collapse into rubble on top of your deformed frame."

He smiled - he had her, now. A tug from his hand to bring her closer had no effect at all, but he took a step forward instead. "So do it," he challenged. "Get rid of me."

He edged closer until she would be able to feel the warmth of his breath against her mouth. He saw the rapid-fire way that she blinked in response, her nostrils flaring.

"Are you going to kill me?" he asked, knowing that she wouldn't - having faith in it.

"Considering it," she snapped. "You're boring me half to death. Is that the whole idea?"

"Could be," Will conceded. He tilted his head to the side, wondering if a god like her had ever been kissed before. Music mixed sweetly with romance; what could violence have to say on the matter? He tried to imagine if she had ever even been touched outside of battle, and he ran his thumb along her knuckles, tracing every bump. He had to block images of all the other gods that had been killed by these hands out of his mind; some of them had been friends of his, but survival meant more than that. "Are you bored now?" he asked, raising one hand to stroke his fingers against her cheek, the light from his fingertips illuminating their faces.

"Almost asleep," she confirmed.

He leaned in closer, until their lips were brushing and his eyes were half-lidded. "Now?" he asked, feeling an electric buzz against his lips with the shade of contact. It had been a long time for him too. Being with a god was nothing like it was with humans: more powerful, more important.

"Nearly dying from the monotony," Sue said. She swallowed hard and didn't back away. "Try harder, Schuester."

 _Fine_ , he thought. He grabbed her hips and pulled her forward, the zipper of her tracksuit pressed firmly against his chest. The new proximity allowed him to push their mouths together, harsh and demanding and not at all what a first kiss ought to be.

Her fingers tangled into his hair, pulling so hard at the curls that he thought she was trying to scalp him. When he tried to pull their mouths away, however, she gave a grunt that was certainly a threat, and he found himself wondering what he had got himself into. Her mouth pushed at him, tongue wet and eager, and he found himself with armfuls of a lusty, pushy goddess - this hadn't been the plan when he came out here tonight.

On the other hand, he thinks as he pushes her back against the nearest wall, it does seem to be working.

*

She allowed him to leave afterwards. Lying in an abandoned classroom with her tracksuit top still on (even if she'd long since lost the bottoms), she waved him towards the door. "We can reschedule the death match," she declared, as kindly as she was able.

Will raised his head, feeling as if all of the energy had been drained from his spent limbs. "Are you sure?" he asked, although he shouldn't have doubted a gift-horse while it was baring its teeth at him.

"Go," Sue insisted, giving him a firm shove so he fell off of the desk onto the floor. "Get dressed and get out before I decide to kill you anyway."

He couldn't think of a single reason to put up an argument, so he scrambled for his clothes and hopped into his trousers while she watched. "If you tell anyone about this, Schuester, I'll kill them too," she warned him absent-mindedly, as if death threats were no big deal.

He had to shrug. "Who would I tell?" All of the other gods were dead or hiding; none of the humans could understand. He was on his own in this.

She didn't watch him as he left, and he found himself out in the hallway once more. His heart raced and he couldn't escape the feeling that he'd just got away with something that he really shouldn't have. He wasn't usually this lucky.

He let himself out of the school and found himself unexpectedly at a loss about what to do now. Leaving the city still probably wasn't an option, and without any solid die-date he now found himself with open freedom on his hands. There was something intoxicating about it that he didn't want to leave behind.

The sun had started to rise and colour the car park when Will walked across it, hands in his pockets. He hadn't brought a car but the ground felt too good beneath his feet to take that happiness away. The walk would do him good: fresh air on his face, the sun in the sky, life in the world. He hadn't felt this good in a long time - and the ghosts of Sue's fiercely demanding hands were determined to send shivers down his spine.

His mind was lost in fresh memories he shouldn't have indulged in - and he didn't notice the angry principal heading his way until it was far too late.

"William!"

Will's footsteps came to a halt as he found himself faced with a pint-sized irate principal. "Figgins?" he said. "What are you doing here? It's early." Ridiculously early, in fact. No one should have been around.

"Some of us choose to come into work when we are paid to do so," Figgins said. "Where were you? I had to call for an emergency substitute. Do you know how much that costs? I can't budget for your boredom, William!"

Will could see the dying dollar signs skating around Figgins's mind. "I'm sorry," he said, while wondering why he bothered. "There was a family emergency."

"Miss Sylvester also disappeared," Figgins said, eyes narrowing. Will had the feeling that he was trying to see straight through his soul. He didn't know if it would work; he wasn't sure if gods had souls, as such. More than that. Less than that. Something entirely different. "Did she have a 'family emergency' too?"

"You'd have to ask her," Will said.

"I will," Figgins warned. Will smiled and wondered if she was still inside, pantsless. Figgins could find her like that and ask her all the questions that she would allow. "I'd better see you at work today, Schuester. I don't have enough money to hire a substitute for the second day in a row!"

"I'll be here," Will promised, surprising himself - but, what the hell, why not? With Sue temporarily putting him off of her hit list, he had all the time in the world to play around in the school, to try to make this club into something special. "See you later."

Figgins grunted at him with something like indignation, but he headed on his own way, scuttling up the steps into the school. Will left Sue to deal with him if she wanted to, hoping that she was currently too satisfied to think about murder. Figgins would probably get to keep his life.

In the meantime, Will found himself with a couple of hours before he had to think about returning to school to teach mortal teenagers. The world was his - and, at the moment, all he wanted was a decent cup of coffee.  


*

As it turned out, going through this life as a god wasn't any different than it had been when he thought he was a human. No one paid him any more attention. The woman at the coffee shop looked tired and bored as she made his drink, and he imagined what it might feel like to pour music into her mind, to light up her thoughts with the kinds of melodies that only came to her in dreams; he could make her heart dance and a smile burst onto her face. Glee could spread throughout this entire town with the barest thought, and all that he would have to do would be sit back and watch.

But -

No.

He took hold of his drink and reined himself in, because his time and his memories of this town had taught him that glee was about more than the music; it was about choice. It was about opening your soul to something bigger than yourself, and that involved something inside you. He couldn't force it on people. Free will. Free music. It was important.

He drank from his coffee too quickly and burnt his tongue in the process, before he made his way back towards the school. He hadn't marked papers and found himself with no real desire to actually do so.

He floated throughout his morning without feeling any great sense of responsibility. When students tried to make his life a misery, it was easy enough to steal their voices away, leaving their mouths flapping and no words coming out. "It's strange," Emma said at lunch while she stared down at the crumbs that his sandwich had left across the table. She hadn't tried to clear them away one by one yet: to Will, that seemed like progress. "All these students going home sick... I think something might be going 'round. Is that what you had yesterday?"

Will shook his head, thinking of fires and running for his life. "Not quite."

"Seems strange, doesn't it?" Emma frowned, her brow drawing together in a way that Will found adorable, even now. He imagined that he always would. "It must be a bug."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Will assured her - before a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

He looked up in alarm to find Sue towering over him, with a smile on her face that was threateningly friendly. "From what I hear, it is extraordinarily contagious. Mind if I take a seat?" She plopped down before anyone could raise an objection - not that Will would have dared to. "The strange thing is that all of the cases are originating in William's classroom. He's the only common link between them, _and_ he had to take the afternoon off of work yesterday. If I were you, sunshine, I'm not sure if I'd feel safe around this harbour of germs without some considerable breathing apparatus to protect myself."

Emma's eyes grew wider and she swallowed, but she didn't move - a misplaced sense of loyalty and defiance, Will guessed. "It's okay," he assured her. "You can go if you want. I can handle Sue."

Emma delicately packed what little remained of her lunch away, twitching a smile at him before she beat a hasty defeat. Will watched as the door closed in her wake, lingering there for a moment, before he turned his attention back to Sue. He wasn't sure if he had the heart for this conversation. His nerves were already shredded.

"Was that really necessary?"

"Yes." She blinked at him like a reptile devoid of conscience. "Being around you is a health hazard. It was only fair to warn her before the stench of your hairspray reached fatal levels in her system."

He tried hard to be offended, but all that he managed was a small smile. "Sue," he cautioned quietly, more warmth in his voice than was secretly necessary. After last night, they had a connection. He had felt it.

Sue's face, however, remained completely impassive. "It isn't safe for that woman to be around you," Sue said, and Will began to get the impression that this really had nothing to do with contagious viruses or hairspray overloads at all. It was achingly personal.

"Are you jealous?" he asked her, leaning forward over the weak table. "Of Emma?"

She looked as if she was about to chop his head off for even suggesting it. That seemed like a solid enough indication that it was true.

"You are, aren't you?" He couldn't keep the giddy delight out of his voice.

"She's mortal. _Human_." Sue blinked at him, and she looked like a dinosaur in the sun. Her teeth were sharper than that. "It's a matter of principle."

"It is no such thing." Will was grinning by this point - it felt as though he had finally scored a point after a long, hard game. The victory was sure to be short-lived. "You were jealous because I was talking to someone else."

She leaned forward, deep into his personal space, and Will stayed right where he was. His brow furrowed and he met her glare with one of his own, remembering the ferocity that had come the night before and the feel of her burning hands against his bare skin.

"Stay away from that woman, William," she warns him. "Or you will find her pretty Bambi-eyed head sitting on your desk before the end of the day. Don't push me."

Will's eyebrows rose and he nodded, sinking against the back of his seat. It seemed to be enough to satisfy Sue, who lounged in her seat and happily stole one of his sandwiches. She took a ridiculously large chomp out of it and met his eyes as if eating his food was an open challenge. He rolled his eyes and didn't take her up on it. Sometimes you had to pick your battles when you were fighting with an obnoxiously powerful goddess.

*

The next battle that he picked, however, came only that evening once school was over and he was in the choir room with his glee club. The music was flowing, beats slamming, inspiration crackling - the kids thought that it was down to them alone and he let them grasp that belief, let it bolster their confidence and enthusiasm while he floated in his element. The music was like a drug for him, a home away from home, and here it welcomed him like an old friend. Inspiration had been gone for too long.

He managed to work in a spot of rapping for himself in between songs, smile on his face as he broke it down with the kids.

And then Sue came, smashing into the party like an angry storm cloud. "Schuester," she snapped. "Outside. Now."

He paused mid-rap. The backing music dwindled to a halt and he let his shoulders deflate. "Guys, keep practising, and talk among yourselves about ideas to really kick it this year." He left them talking quietly, knowing that he would have to deal with a _coup_ from Rachel when he got back. Moving out into the corridor, he made sure to close the door firmly behind himself. He didn't think that most of the members of glee club would physically be able to handle the mental strain of overhearing a god's bickering fit.

"What is it, Sue?" he asked, hands settling on his hips. "I'm busy."

She looked as if he had splashed water into her face. He struggled not to look as if he was enjoying it too much. "I think you're beginning to forget your position in all of this, Schuester."

"I remember it perfectly." He remembered the needy, hunting grasp of her hands and the thrust of her tongue; he remembered realising that she was just as lonely as him, just as desperate. "You don't want to kill me. You've got nothing over me any more."

"I'll kill them." She thrust a finger in the direction of the choir room as if she was trying to shoot lightning from the tip. When he went back into the room, Will wouldn't have been surprised to find at least one of the kids without a breath in their body. "All of them."

"No, you won't," he said, steady and certain as if it was a fact. "If you hurt them, then we're done. And you're alone."

"And you'd have no more leverage over me. If you try to withhold anything from me, then I have no reason to keep you alive. Works both ways, maggot."

Will tightened his jaw and breathed in through his nose. Possibly, this hadn't been the brightest idea that he had ever had.

Sue closed in, tight enough that he could feel her breath and smell her sharp perfume. He met her eyes and glared at her, shoulders squared, but this was a fight that he could feel himself losing. "So go into your tone-deaf carollers and tell them to get themselves a new babysitter. You're done."

This was not how he had envisioned this, but he was cornered now: captured. "This isn't fair," he complained, his voice raising even if he knew he should have kept it down. "You can't do this."

Behind them, the door to the choir room opened and several heads stuck out. Will waved an impatient hand in their direction: the last thing that he needed was for any of the kids to get involved in this mess. He didn't need their blood on his hands.

"Do you need any help, Mr Schue?" Finn offered, as if he thought that a good football tackle might be all that was required in this situation.

Will turned around to tell him to get back to practice, but what he saw froze the words on his tongue. It wasn't a group of teenagers talking to him. More than that, bigger than that. He saw multi-coloured skin and extra eyes and snakes dancing where hair should be. He deliberately avoided looking into Rachel's eyes, just in case.

"I think you should let Mr Schue come back to practice, Coach Sylvester," Rachel advised. Turning back to Sue, Will saw the scandalised widening of her eyes and knew that she saw the same truth that he had: the gods were back. They'd been hiding all along. "We've got a lot of rehearsing to do."

Sue's hand scrambled at the waist to her pants, but her sword wasn't with her. Her sense of security must have saved them from a shot to the gut.

"Don't think you're getting away with this," she warned him, hissing her words low.

However, like a well-trained general, she made a tactical retreat, storming down the corridors. Will could practically see the furious plots forming in a dark cloud above her head, but they had time yet before they had to worry. Turning around, there was a broad, unbelieving smile on his face. His friends were there, alive and breathing in human form. Teenagers, under his nose the entire time - how was this possible?

As the door closed behind them, Will was swept into a group hug of godlike proportions, squeezing pressure that might have killed someone more mortal. "How is this possible?" he asked, laughing at the sight. Finn, unveiled as shining Apollo; Rachel, the snakes of her hair betraying her as Medusa; the three cheerleaders transformed into the three Muses. Gods from many mythologies lounged in the choir room, smiling at him from across the centuries. "You died. All of you - you _died_."

"That's right," Finn agreed. "But that doesn't have to mean we're gone. We thought something might happen - so we arranged this as an insurance policy."

Will shook his head: he still had no idea what 'this' was.

"We're shadows," Rachel said. "Projections, and pale ones at that."

"Ghosts," Will provided.

Rachel shook her head. "More than that. Much more. We're not quite up to our old standards, but between all of us we have a very good chance at overpowering Sylvestra."

At the mention of that shaky plan, Will frowned and shook his head. All of the optimism and blind faith in the world couldn't make up for one simple fact: she was more powerful than them. She had killed them when they were alive and at full strength.

The Muses smiled as if they were peeking into his very thoughts. "You can't kill a ghost," they said, Brittany, Quinn and Santana speaking as one. "We're already dead - what can she do to us now?"

"She's Sue. She'll find a way." Whether it meant charging into the Underworld itself, nothing would stop her. Will didn't doubt that.

"And so will we," Mercedes said, her hammer slung casually over her shoulder. "You taught us that, Mr Schue. As a group, there's nothing we can't do."

Will wasn't sure where the kids started and the gods began, but he found himself too overwhelmed to worry about the distinction. "Alright," he said, clapping his hands together once. "Let's do this."

It was time to plot against the most powerful god in the universe - and work out how to survive.  
*  
 _Fiends!_

 _All of them, nothing but fiends._

 _Sue stalked through the school corridors before bursting out of the front door of the school, her head down and shoulders raised as she stomped. This was unsporting: the act of cowards. She had killed them, run them through with her sword and left them bleeding. They had no right to remain alive. No right at all._

 _This was all Schuester's doing. It had his disgusting stamp all over it. She shouldn't have expected better; didn't, to be honest._

 _Should have seen it coming._

 _She won't make the same mistake, however. This time, when she killed them, she would do the job properly._

 _She would make sure that it stuck._

*

Despite knowing that there was a great battle ahead of them, Will couldn't help the comfortable smile on his face as he spent time with long-dead friends. His double-vision was confused and blurred, seeing students and gods as one as they worked together in the choir room late into the night.

When Figgins dropped by to visit, he blinked and stared in confusion. Instead of singing, he found a group of students armed to the teeth and practising the best ways in which to disembowel a person. Seeing his stunned confusion, Will peeled away from the rest of the group and walked towards him. "We're thinking of staging musical Shakespeare this year," he said, with a bright smile and optimism in his eyes. He knew how to look delusional. "It's a great way for students to feel in touch with the literature. I think it'll be a huge hit."

Figgins gaped at him like a disapproving fish. "You'll have to meet with me to discuss the funding," he said eventually. "First thing tomorrow morning."

"I'll be there," Will promised. He kept smiling. "You'll love it, I promise."

Figgins's grunt implied that he doubted that very much. He was content to leave, however, muttering to himself about funding and budgets. Will closed the door and turned around to face his friends, wishing he knew what to say.

"I don't think that this is going to work," he said, announcing what they all should have been thinking. "A blind rush at her - she's smarter than that."

"I don't think your plan of, um, seducing her into letting you live is all that hot either," Finn pointed out. "She's like one of those black widows."

"She's just lonely," Will said, determined. She was evil and she was crazy, but that didn't mean that she had no emotions. There was a heart somewhere in there.

The way that the others were looking at him implied that they thought he'd gone off the deep end. The lonely strings playing in the background probably had something to do with that. He focused to make them stop, knowing that his grasp on his powers weakened when his emotions were running wild. At the moment, with everything up in the air, his emotions were definitely loose.

"I'm just saying that we need to be smart about this," he relented. "She's better than us at this. Last time she managed to wipe all of you out. This time, you're dead and it's just me. We can't charge in headfirst."

They were staring at him as if he was talking nonsense. Planning had never been their strong points, he knew that.

"We can't just run away," Mercedes told him, with raised eyebrows that spoke of silent judgement. He had to give her that one: running away was his constant fall-back. In this case, he had to reluctantly accept that that wasn't going to work, not now that she had her claws into him. It had been an option when she hadn't noticed him before, when he hadn't been anything more than a speck on her windshield.

"Sit down, everyone. All of you." Using his best teacher's voice still seemed to have an effect, because the group of gods trailed towards the seats. They huffed and sighed on the way, and Medusa's hair hissed, but they listened. "I'm not talking about running away. And we're not talking about fighting. What we need is a third option that utilises our skills. So stop arguing, pull together, and think."

He stared at them.

They stared back.

The silence started to make his ears ache.

"Anyone?"

In the background, Kurt crossed his legs and checked his fingernails, but he didn't open his mouth to contribute. His third eye blinked in the centre of his forehead.

Puck leaned forward and said, "Dude, we're ghosts. And your speciality is music and light. That doesn't make for a kick-ass arsenal."

"That's true, I know. Again: you're thinking of fighting. We need to go beyond that. Above it. Sylvestra has a weakness. We're just not seeing it yet."

Rachel folded her hand in her lap and fought to catch his attention. "I don't think that we're the ones missing anything, Mr Schue," she told him. "The weakness is staring us right in the face."

Will frowned, stared at her, and tried to work out what on earth she was talking about. The snakes of her hair all stared back at him with reptilian fury. "I don't follow you," he had to admit eventually.

Her smile was as warm as possible; her eyes were gentle, despite the war that was gearing into place around them. "There's only one person here that she hasn't tried to kill."

Him.

The idea of himself as Sue's weakness was almost laughable; unfortunately, Will couldn't work up the energy to do so. "She's tried. She hasn't managed, but she has tried."

"That's exactly my point. You are her only 'failure', yet you are the weakest of us all. If she really wanted you dead, you'd have been the first to go."

Will wasn't sure if he was extremely comfortable with that logic, but it had a certain pang of truth to it. "We can go with that," he said - as long as they didn't examine it too closely, he was willing to grasp onto anything they had. Advantages were so slim that they had to make the most of anything that they could come up with.

Time was running out.  


*

He sat at the edge of the stage, legs swinging through the air. His hands clung onto the black wood, and he remembered the many performances that had been staged here, the lights and the dancing and the songs. It felt like a long time ago, now, even if by the scale of eternity it was nothing but an eye-blink.

Dimly, he wondered what might become of the world once he was gone. He wondered if the magic of music would survive his death, or if the world would be stunned into a forgetful silence without him - wondering what used to make them dance, forgetting the beats and flow that had once thrived.

In all likelihood, he had to doubt that his absence would have any impact. He may have been the god of music, but he wasn't its master. It lived beyond him, now.

"You look depressing," Sue said as she made her entrance from backstage. Will's spine stiffened, even if he had been expecting her. "I can feel a noose forming just looking at you. Is that the big plan?"

Will shook his head and clambered to his feet, dusting down his jeans once he standing. "There's no 'big plan'," he admitted. "Just this. Just me."

Her nostrils flared and she examined the area. "Where are the others? Your cheating little army of fiends?"

"Gone. I sent them away. You're right: it isn't fair." He stepped forwards, holding his hands behind his back. "You killed them. They should have stayed dead."

She eyed him suspiciously. He could see the gleaming sword in her hand and knew that it had been brought here for him; the tip was designed to pierce straight through his chest, to impale him until his life bled out. If he played this right, everything could be okay. "You don't fool me, Schuester. You're too brainless to have a change of heart. I'm going to find out what you're up to. And then I'm going to kill you - quickly, because you aren't worth the attention. Before you die, while you are bleeding over your cheap shirt, I will take a pair of scissors, and I will cut off that ridiculous mop on your head, because I don't believe in disrespecting the dead."

"Sue, cutting off my hair is just-"

"Respectful. It would be improper to allow anyone to be buried with that foul beast clinging to their scalp."

She sounded worryingly sincere.

"I'm happy with my hair where it is," Will told her, keeping his voice as even as possible. "I'd also like to stay alive, if that's alright."

"It's not."

"We both know that you don't want to kill me. Who would you have to torture if I was gone?"

"This is nothing like torture," Sue sniffed at him. "That you could even think of such a comparison demonstrates how easy I've gone on you. I could show you torture."

"That's my whole point," Will exclaimed with a smile. His eyes shone like slightly unstable coins. "You could and you don't. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

He knew exactly what could happen under this kind of pressure. Rather than cave to the truth, Sue could swing in the direction - she could raise her sword and make him scream just to prove that she could, that her emotions weren't stronger than her fury. He was playing with fire here, and any wise person would advise against it. In this situation, he didn't think that there was any safer option.

"Sue," he murmured, his voice dropping to a warm vibration as he moved as far forward into her personal space that he dared to go. "Sylvestra."

"Take another step and you'll lose your feet," she warned him.

After pausing for a bare moment, he moved forward anyway. His heart was racing and he simply had to hope that the others were close enough to step in if this all went horribly wrong. "We don't have to fight," he assured her.

"Coward."

"It doesn't have to be a weakness to turn your back on violence," Will said. "Sometimes, it can be the bravest thing of all."

Now Sue was looking at him as if he was crazy. This possibly wasn't working out as well as he had envisioned. In his daydreams, he was a lot more convincing than this. "If you think I'm bluffing about the eternal pain and torment, just keep walking," she warned him.

Will took another step.

As a reward, he received the tip of Sue's sword in the bed of his crotch, pressed firmly enough to stop his breath in his chest. She didn't put the pressure behind the weapon yet, but the coldness of her eyes said that she would have no problem with doing so. "Now, I know that your balls are so vaguely attached to your body that losing them wouldn't be a great tragedy, but I also know that a weakling like you has an intolerance for pain. Back up, Schuester."

Reluctantly, he took a step away. Instead of letting him go, she followed him, keeping the pressure constant and the threat clear. Back and back they went, crossing the black stage.

"I've gotta say, William, I was almost impressed with that little stunt you pulled back there. I don't know how you did it, bringing the others back, but it was a smart move. By using the word 'smart', I mean to imply three things: back-stabbing, cheating and a move that is going to ensure that I take the extra time needed to murder you all thoroughly this time."

Will's back hit the wall at the side of the stage and she closed in further, tilting her sword at an angle to keep it jammed thoroughly in his crotch. One good shove and his manhood would be severed. Will swallowed hard and looked up into the bright blast of lights above them. His chest heaved as he breathed, even as he tried to remain as still as possible: as if, like a dinosaur, she wouldn't see him if he didn't move.

Her hand wrapped around his neck, clutching it as tightly as she held the handle of her sword. Her palm was scorching, several degrees above that of an ordinary human - burning with her anger, with the bright fire of her emotions. "I could crush your windpipe like a piece of paper," she told him. "Crush it and burn it and spit on the pieces."

He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing against her hand. Her fingers tightened.

"And one day I will," Sue stated confidently - but before Will could ask if that meant that he would be spared today, he felt the shiver of her mouth against his neck, floating against the pressure where her hand gripped tightly. Her sword was still jammed tightly into his crotch, and her teeth scraped against his neck. "Some day soon."

He tried to argue or agree with her, but all that came out was a confused burble. Using her grip on his neck she tugged him forward, stepping out of the way so that he fell sprawling onto the ground. Her sword clattered to the ground as she climbed over him, sinking down like a predator ready to devour its meal. She slapped his hip impatiently. "Pants off, Schuester. I don't have all day."

"We have eternity," Will pointed out.

"If you spend eternity trying to remove your cheap budget-store cast-offs, I'm going to get bored. Can you imagine what happens when I get bored?"

"Does it involve disemboweling?" Will guessed. When it came to Sue, everything seemed to lead back to blood, guts and pain.

She smiled and leaned over him, her teeth glinting like fangs. "Maybe you're not quite as slow as I thought," she said, before she closed the space between them and pressed their mouths together as if she was trying to devour him. Her hands tangled in his hated hair as if she was trying to rip it from his scalp. He wrapped his arms around her torso, holding her tight, holding her still. She kissed him like an enemy force, overwhelming and overpowering - all he could do was try to keep up, try to keep her happy, try to keep her distracted.

His hand floated down the line of her spine until it rested on the small of her back, leaving her exposed. He sucked on her bottom lip and heard the rumbling growl in the back of her throat, answering him - so close, it was almost enough to drown out the sound of creeping footsteps, if he hadn't been listening out for them. She pushed her hips down against him, a promise of what was to come, and he wished that he had the time to apologise: he wished there was another way to go about this, but she was too dangerous.

Their mouths parted as she frowned suspiciously - too late.

The sound was like slicing meat as Rachel pushed Sue's own sword into her back, crashing through ribs and muscle to the heart. The tip of the sword emerged from the other side, blood spreading like red wine across Sue's sweatsuit and dripping down onto Will beneath her.

"How dare you?" she wheezed, looking down at the sword in her chest as if it was a disgrace.

The rest of the Glee Club, the gods, spread out behind her and watched. With sluggish hands she tried to reach behind her to withdraw the sword from her body. Will reached out for her, placing his hands on her biceps. "Sue, it's okay," Will assured her, clinging on tightly. "It's going to be okay."

She thrashed and dislodged his grip, stumbling to her feet on unsteady legs. Her torso wavered and her feet slipped; her face was beginning to pale. "You disgust me," she hissed with a clenched jaw. Her teeth were stained red, blood in her mouth which she spat onto the stage. "You're not a god. You're worse than human."

"We can bring you back," Will promised. "A ghost - you'll be just how you were."

"But reduced," Rachel said, keeping her distance as her hair danced with victory. "It's safer this way."

Sue's answer was a snarl, but it was too late: the blood ran until her body lit up, white and glowing like liquid gold. Her eyes shone with supernatural light, enough to burn the retina, as he stared, as he watched - she disappeared, burning into the air, exploding with an ear-shattering _bang_ like a firework.

Still lying on the floor, he stared up at the space where she had been. Flakes of ash and burnt material floated down to the stage, where the blood stains remained.

Will blinked, once. He did it twice for good measure.

"What happened?" he asked, when blinking didn't seem to accomplish any sense of clarity for him.

"She died," Finn said.

Brittany offered, "She went away," before the other Muses hushed her.

"Her anger burned her into pieces," Rachel said. "Right now, she's floating somewhere in the black. She'll be back - this time, without a body."

"Oh." Will had never seen a god die before. It was nothing like the passing of humans; it wasn't what he had expected.

He didn't feel as good as he ought to either. He had just defeated the most powerful goddess in all the universe; why didn't he feel like celebrating?

Before him, the ghostly gods were in a triumphant mood, and he imagined they are going to burst into song at any moment due to his influence - he could hear the '80s power chords in the background already, and he smiled as he watched the Glee Club holding hands and dancing with each other in celebration.

He could sing along, but the words felt hollow.

Dancing over the spilt blood on the stage, he couldn't get the taste of betrayal out of his mouth.  


*

He had to go to work tomorrow, to teach teenagers how to speak Spanish and to coordinate a show choir consisting of the ghosts of gods. Heading back to his apartment, he found it dark and cold as he slipped inside. Splashes of blood still remained on his shirt, and he knew that no amount of washing would get rid of the stains. Stripping off, he threw the shirt in the direction of the laundry basket anyway, in the dull hope of being able to save it. He was a god, still. What would be wrong with abusing his power in order to hold onto his favourite clothes?

He walked through the apartment with his ears strained as if he was waiting for angry footsteps and hair-related insults to be flung at him from the darkness - but it didn't happen.

He made it through the night unscathed, although he couldn't sleep. His mind was out in the universe, wondering what they had done, where she had gone. Victory was supposed to taste sweeter than this. They had done what they had to, but he still couldn't escape the heavy weight of guilt hanging on his shoulders. He lay in bed without sleeping, and got dressed in the morning without paying attention to any of his movements. He didn't have breakfast; he didn't need to eat.

The school was ready to carry on as normal as he approached it in the morning. The traffic was clogged and there were students milling in the car park, ready to cause trouble and pretend to learn. Will walked past without bothering to intervene with the occasional spurt of bullying that he saw: name-calling and dumpster-dropping. With his Glee Club, he had killed the cheerleading coach the day before. By comparison, a slushie to the face seemed mild.

He smiled at Figgins and waved at Emma as he made his way towards his classroom, numbly running through lesson plans in his mind as he mentally mapped out his day. He couldn't explain why he was still here at the school. There was no longer any reason to stay in hiding, and the day-to-day lives of mortals shouldn't really have interested him - yet leaving didn't appeal to him. He had a life here. Friends. He thought that maybe he was happy, to a certain extent.

He made it to his classroom ten minutes before school started, walking past loitering groups of students, and closed the door behind him with a cautious smile on his face.

She was here.

After a night of waiting and worrying, Sue was leaning against his desk,. arms crossed over her chest. He recognised the expression on her face: it meant that she was going to war.

"Get that droopy smile off of your face, Schuester," she instructed. "I feel sick just looking at it. You'll cause an epidemic throughout the school."

Despite her apparent concerns over public health, Will couldn't listen to her. "You're alive," he said, followed by a surprised laugh. "It worked!"

Her eyes narrowed. It seemed as if she was trying to burn him with the power of her glare, but it didn't work - luckily for Will. "You killed me," she reminded him. "I'm nothing but a shadow."

"It's like being human," Will pointed out. "Look at the Glee kids. They've settled in perfectly." It may have been slightly disturbing to see a set of gods so determined to win a mortal singing competition, but Will liked it. It seemed healthier than wanting to hack each other into pieces or play supernatural tricks on their worshippers.

Sue crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm still the coach in this school. I'll bring you down, Schuester. I'm going to watch your little glee club burn to the ground."

Will didn't doubt for a moment that she would try. With a smile on his face, he stepped forward, head tilted to the side as he stepped into her personal space. She didn't retreat. Her breath still smelled like fire. "You're going to try," he told her, "but you're not going to succeed."

"I will crush you," she hissed. Her hand twitched as if she was already imagining it.

Will's heart was racing, and he knew that it wasn't in fear. There was a level playing field before them, now. Sue didn't have her powers; Will wouldn't use his.

"Bring it on," he said, but he bit his tongue before he could add, _bitch_. Sometimes it was better not to push his luck.

She bared her teeth like an animal about to attack, and he wanted to kiss her. More than that, he wanted to push her back against his desk and have her there, make her scream out for him in the centre of the school: a new kind of defeat, a way to prove she didn't hate him as much as she wanted to.

The school bell rang as they stared at each other, breathing the scant air between them.

"See you soon," Will promised.

"Lunchtime," Sue said. "My office. I'm going to eat you alive."

He watched her storm out of his office, and leaned back against his desk as his heart pounded and his mind danced with images of all of the horrors and treats that could await him at lunchtime. For both gods and mortals, time couldn't move fast enough.


End file.
